Chapter 67
Diaper-changing was . . . daunting. Even though they'd practiced in Lamaze class and had asked a nurse to help them the first couple times, when it was time to do it on their own, Bellamy couldn't help but feel like he and Clarke were in over their heads. What if they screwed it up somehow? What if they forgot something?
Clarke, it seemed, was less intimidated by him. "Okay, we can do this," she said as they stood together at the changing table, looking down at Avery, who was busier looking towards the window than at either of them. "Just like we practiced, just like the nurse showed us," she said. "Hands washed?"
"Hands washed," he confirmed.
"Okay, then." Clarke was the one to make the first move, unhooking Avery's diaper at the sides. "Diaper off," she declared. "Oh, look, I don't think it's that bad."
"I'm sure it'll get worse," he predicted, lifting up Avery's legs so Clarke could pull the diaper out from underneath her. For now, there still wasn't much that their little girl was digesting.
"Did you know they need diaper changes, like, ten times a day?" Clarke said as she disposed of the old one quickly.
"So, what, that's seventy diaper changes a week?" he calculated. "Right? I'm too tired. I can't do math."
"Right," she confirmed. "But we can do this." She took one of the wipes and wiped off Avery's bottom in the exact same way the nurse had, front to back because going in the other direction ran the risk of infection. "So much easier than a boy," she mumbled. "At least with a little girl, you don't have to worry about dodging streams of pee."
"True," he said. Oh, in some ways, having a girl was going to be a lot more difficult, though. Like when she got her first period someday or wanted to go on her first date. Or when she inevitably made him watch Disney Princess movies every single night. There was a reason why lots of dads knew all the songs in Frozen. He'd be damned if he let her prefer that movie over The Little Mermaid, though. Princess Ariel was fucking iconic.
"See, we're good at this," Clarke said, handing him the brand new diaper so he could be the one to put it on.
"We're not bad," he agreed, getting over his fear of the whole process as he stuck it together on the sides. He made sure not to cover up the umbilical cord stump, even though it looked weird. "We'll have to make a competition out of it or something," he proposed, "see who becomes the fastest diaper-changer."
That got a laugh out of her, but only a short-lived one before she reached down to put one hand to her crotch and said, "Oh, crap."
"What?" His first instinct was that something was wrong.
"I think I peed a little," she said. "There's, like, no control down there right now. It's awful."
It sounded awful, but at least it wasn't anything worse. "That's okay," he assured her. All the nurses had told her that was to be expected.
"Yeah, I'm practically wearing a diaper myself right now, so I'm not really concerned about it," she said, sitting back down on the side of her bed. "I am looking forward to showering, though."
To him, she still looked pretty damn good, but he could only imagine how eager she was to get clean again. He put Avery back in her crib, did his best to swaddle her up a bit—his swaddling technique still needed some work—and then rolled the crib over to the bed so he and Clarke could both still watch her as they sat and talked. "How're you feeling?" he asked, sitting down beside her.
"Still tired," she said, "but happy. Kinda sore."
"Where?"
She gave him a look. "Where do you think?"
"Oh." Yeah, that made sense. She'd pushed a whole baby out of there, so what did he expect?
"But do you notice I'm already looking thinner?" she said, smiling as she pressed one hand to her stomach.
"You look great," he said. It was kind of crazy how much of her baby belly she'd already lost. Some of it was still there, of course, but not like it had been. He'd gotten so used to struggling to wrap his arms around her that it was almost going to be weird to just be able to hold her so close again.
Clarke picked up a stack of papers from her bedside table and handed it to him. "Look at all this stuff, all these rules I have to follow to heal up properly," she said. "The weight loss is nice, but . . . it's all gonna be a process."
He skimmed through the shortest bullet points, because quite frankly, this was way too much reading for him even when he'd gotten enough sleep. "Drink eight to ten glasses of water a day," he said. "Wow."
"I'm gonna drink while I breastfeed," she said. "That's what they recommend."
This whole having to pee a lot thing wasn't going anywhere then, was it? Because that was a lot of water to take in on one day. "Avoid stairs," he read on. "I guess I'll be carrying you then."
"Sorry," she said quietly.
"No, I don't mind." He could haul her up and down the stairs, no problem.
"You're gonna have to do a lot," she warned him.
"Clarke, you're literally nourishing a child right now, and recovering from giving birth to her," he reminded her. "I can do whatever you need." He was ready for this, for all that it entailed. He could run all the errands and do the housework and cook the meals. He could be the one to wake up and change Avery in the middle of the night. Unless she needed to be fed. There was no way he could be a substitute for that.
"Take showers, not baths," he read. "Alright. Don't drive until your doctor says it's okay. Why's that?"
"I don't know," she said with a shrug. "Something to do with the seatbelt, probably. Look at all this fun stuff." She turned to the next page and pointed to a section called Physical Changes.
"Engorged breasts," he noted. "Constipation. Aches and pains. Sounds fun." Man, women as a gender just had it rough. He would have thought that making it through the pregnancy was the hardest part, but this didn't exactly sound much easier. "Ooh, what's this?" he said when his eyes caught sight of a heading on the bottom of the page. "Sexual relations."
She must have already ready through that, because she told him, "It's gonna take four to six weeks."
"Four to six . . ." He stopped himself before sounding outraged or disappointed. "That's fine." They could go four to six weeks without having sex. Towards the end of her pregnancy, they hadn't been having that much of it anyway. Besides, there was other stuff they could do. They could find some time to appreciate just making out and . . . massaging and stuff. "We're gonna be so tired," he said, "so it's not like we're gonna . . ."
"Be craving it," she filled in.
"Exactly." Although, once they were able to start back up again, he was pretty sure he was going to be insatiable.
"And that'll give me more time to get my body back into shape," she said. "Plus, I'm gonna have to get back on birth control at some point, but I think breastfeeding can help with that. I don't know, I gotta find out more."
Birth control. He hadn't even thought about that. Did that mean he was gonna have to start wearing a condom? It was fine, and he'd do it without complaint, but . . .
"Maybe I'll just get an IUD this time," she pondered. "Those are really effective."
"Yeah," he said, but he didn't even know what different forms of birth control were all out there, let alone how effective the different types were. She probably didn't want to start up on just the pill again, not after . . . well, high school.
Before he could really read anything under the Sexual Relations heading or talk through contraception options with her at all, Dr. Jackson knocked on the door and came into the room. "Good morning," he said, greeting them with a smile.
"Hi," Clarke said.
"How's the Blake family doing today?"
Bellamy smiled, liking the sound of that. The Blake family.
"Good," Clarke replied. "We changed her diaper."
"Very nice." Dr. Jackson came up to Avery's crib, looked down at her, and didn't make any effort to change anything about her diaper, so Bellamy took that to mean they'd done everything right. "Settling right into those parental roles, I see," the doctor said. "I had a feeling you both would."
"I think Lamaze helped a lot," Bellamy said. Without that class, he probably would have felt more overwhelmed.
"Yeah, that was really good," Clarke agreed. "I don't wanna leave yet today, though. I still don't feel ready."
"Yeah, me, neither," Bellamy said. As much as he wanted to get home and to get Avery in the nursery he'd put together just for her, today was too soon.
"We're planning on releasing you tomorrow," Dr. Jackson said. "So we've got all day to go over anything you have questions about."
"Oh, I have a list, actually," Bellamy said, reaching into his pocket. He'd jotted them all down on a napkin that had come with the dinner mom had brought him last night.
"When did you make that?" Clarke asked him.
"While you were asleep." He wanted some answers straight from the doctor and not just from Google.
"He hasn't slept," Clarke told Dr. Jackson.
"I will, tonight," he promised. He'd lost track of how many hours he'd been awake, but it was definitely a lot, and he was starting to feel it. "Um . . . bathing," he said, having to squint to make out his horrible handwriting. "Burping. That umbilical cord stump thing . . . it kinda freaks me out, so I wanna know more about it."
"Alright," Dr. Jackson said.
"And ways to bond," Bellamy added, "because . . . you know, I just wanna bond with her."
"You already are," Clarke assured him, putting her hand on top of his.
"Yeah, but I wanna bond even more." He felt like it was especially important for him, because . . . well, he didn't have biology helping him out in that regard.
"No problem," Dr. Jackson said. "We can go over anything and everything you wanna know. And the nurses can help you practice anything you wanna practice. For right now, though, I'm here to check on the new mom."
"Oh, goodie," Clarke said. "What do you wanna hear about first, my inability to control my bladder or the way I can feel my uterus around my bellybutton?"
Bellamy's phone, located in the pocket opposite his napkin list, vibrated, and he reached in and pulled it out as Dr. Jackson talked to Clarke about what she could expect her bladder to be like for the next couple weeks. He saw that he had a text from Raven, and he didn't like what it said. In fact . . . he really didn't like it. It was the kind of text that made him tense up, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he knew he couldn't just sit there and ignore it. At the same time, though, he didn't want to get Clarke worked up about anything, so he said, "Hey, I think Raven and Murphy are here. I'm gonna go see them," and stood up.
"Okay," she said. "They can come back after we're all done here."
"Yeah." They'd do that. They'd come see the baby, their goddaughter. Harper and Miller and everyone else would come later. All their friends would. All the grandparents would be back, and so would Octavia. But for now . . . he had to go deal with something.
When he got out to the waiting room, he found Raven and Murphy engaged in a hushed conversation, one they both abruptly stopped having when he came towards them.
"Hey," Raven said. "How is everyone?"
"Good," he said. "You guys can go see her soon."
Raven smiled. "I'm excited."
"Yeah." It was gonna be great. Everything . . . was gonna be great.
He glanced towards the big sliding door that looked out onto the parking lot, and he felt his stomach start to knot up. "So you said Finn's here?" he said, his jaw clenched tight.
Raven sort of . . . grimaced, and Murphy nodded and confirmed, "Yeah, we saw him out in the parking lot."
"Did he tell you guys he was coming?" Raven asked.
"No." It pissed him off that the guy even had the audacity to show up, and he wished he hadn't. Because everything was going well, and they had it all under control. No need to throw a wrench into the works. "I guess I'd better go deal with him," he said, heading towards the door. He strode outside with as much confidence as he could muster, even though, inside, he was panicking. What if Finn insisted on seeing his daughter? What if he wanted to hold her?
Bellamy found the guy standing next to a motorcycle smoking a cigarette. He scoffed inwardly at that, because here he was driving around with a car seat in the back of his vehicle, and Finn now had a mode of transportation that wasn't safe for any kid.
"What're you doing here?" he demanded, marching right up to Clarke's ex.
Finn quickly threw his cigarette down on the ground and put it out with his shoe. "I heard," he said. "So she had the baby?"
Bellamy didn't even want to answer the question, but it wasn't like it was something he could lie about or keep secret. "Yeah."
Finn nodded wordlessly for a few seconds, then asked, "And everything's good?"
Do you care? Bellamy wondered. Or was he just here to act like he cared? "Yeah, they're both fine," he answered tersely. No need to go into detail about what Avery looked like, or how many pounds she weighed, or how many inches she measured.
"What'd she name her?" Finn questioned.
Bellamy didn't exactly want to share that, either, but again, it wasn't something confidential. "Avery," he answered. And just to rub it in a bit, he decided to reveal her full name. "Avery Octavia Blake."
If Finn was surprised to hear that last name, he did a pretty good job of hiding it. But Bellamy saw a flash of something in his eyes. Regret, maybe? Jealousy? Either way, he liked it. "It's a pretty name," Finn said. "And you said she's fine? Like, there's nothing wrong with her?"
"No." So far, she was perfect, inside and out. "I was there when they ran all the tests." And he was gonna be there for . . . everything else. All her newborn check-ups. Her first steps, her first words. Her first day of preschool, and everything else that would follow. He was gonna be there for it all, and Finn wasn't.
"Can I see her?" Finn asked, more of a plea than a question. "I know you don't want me to, but . . . please. That's my daughter."
Bellamy folded his arms—he had to, because otherwise he felt like he might just deck the guy—and fought to bite his tongue. "Clarke and I have it covered," he said. "We don't want visitors."
"Then why did I see Raven and her boyfriend-"
"We don't want you to visit her," he said, deciding to be very blunt about it. There was no reason for Finn to be here. The only link he had to Avery was a genetic one. Everything else was non-existent, and Bellamy wanted to keep it that way.
"Right," Finn said sullenly. "Why am I not surprised? Can I at least see a picture of her?"
Bellamy already had pictures, plenty of them, on his phone, and it would have been easy to show Finn just one of them. But he felt like, if he gave the guy an inch, he'd take a mile. He'd probably already made that mistake months ago at the gender reveal party by letting him know it was a girl. But now that Avery was actually here, in the flesh, he felt no desire to include her biological father in anything. He was a loser who'd never wanted to help raise her. So he didn't deserve to see a picture.
"I gotta get back in there," Bellamy said. "You should leave." He made sure to glare at Finn before he turned and headed back inside, because he knew he could look pretty damn intimidating if he tried, and he wanted to make sure the guy did actually drive out of that parking lot. Because he didn't want to waste time dealing with him out here. No, he wanted to be back with his family. Back where he belonged.
...
Bellamy stepped into formation behind his center, crouched down, and called a fast snap. "Set . . . hike!" The center snapped the ball back to him, and it was a perfect snap. And within an instant, Bellamy gauged that there was a perfect route right in front of him to take off. So he did. He ran far enough and fast enough to get the first down, then slid to the turf to avoid getting tackled. No need to risk injury during a pre-season practice.
"And that's a first down," Coach Lightbourne growled angrily. "Is that the game we're playing now, just letting our opponents move the ball on us?"
Nobody responded, least of all the defensive guys that had been getting their asses handed to them the entire practice.
"Run it again!" the coach ordered.
Bellamy got back into formation and once again called the same snap. "Set . . . hike!" This time, to their credit, the defense didn't allow the same gap to form. But his offensive line held together pretty well, and he only had to dance around in the pocket for a few seconds before one of his receivers got open down the field. He tossed the ball, and the receiver trotted into the end zone for what would have been an easy touchdown in an actual game.
"And now we don't have any coverage downfield," Coach Lightbourne lamented. "That's great, guys. Really."
The shoulders of all the defensive guys slumped. They looked demoralized and defeated, but Bellamy actually felt pretty energized. His role as the backup quarterback was pretty much to head the offensive practice squad. But the practice squad, all these second-stringers, were kicking the ass of the first string defense. And it felt good.
"We're gonna drill you guys tomorrow," Coach Lightbourne said, almost as a warning. He checked the time on his watch, shook his head, and motioned them off the field. "Head on in."
The guys all knew well enough to be silent as they headed off the field and into the locker room. Any kind of conversation after a pathetic practice like this would result in them getting lectured. Their coach was definitely stern, but Bellamy didn't mind. Not if it got results. Victories. Some recognition on a national stage. All those things bettered his chances of making it to the NFL someday. Even if it was as a running back instead of a quarterback—no pro teams were going to think he was tall enough to play quarterback—he wanted to try to make it there.
"Bellamy."
He stopped and spun around when his coach said his name. "Yeah?"
Coach Lightbourne moved towards him, with his usual unreadable expression on his face. Bellamy didn't know the guy well enough yet to know whether he was going to compliment him or chew him out. But it turned out to be the former. "You're doing a good job out there," his coach told him.
Yeah, he knew that. He felt it. But it was still nice to hear it. "Good enough to be the starter?" he asked hopefully.
Coach Lightbourne smirked. "Not yet. But you're well on your way. You might even give Brady some competition next year."
Next year . . . sort of felt like a ways off. But Bellamy knew he'd hardly be the first college quarterback to wait his turn. When the time came, he was going to step up and really make an impact, just like he had back in high school. "I plan to," he vowed.
"Good," his coach said. "Now go shower off. You stink."
Bellamy chuckled and headed off after his teammates again, but once again, Coach Lightbourne said something that made him stop and turn back around.
"I'm glad you chose UCF, Bellamy. I think this is where you belong."
Bellamy let that sink in for a minute, eventually nodding. That was nice to hear, too. Because in some ways, he really believed that. He was living up to that athletic scholarship he'd been granted. He was doing what people expected him to do. But on the other hand . . . sometimes he missed being home, too. He missed quarterbacking his high school team and playing with his friends. He missed the small-town feel of Arkadia. He missed his family. And Clarke. He really missed her.
...
Bellamy took about ten minutes to cool off after confronting Finn. He didn't want to be worked up around Clarke or the baby, so he found the nearest bathroom, went in there to splash some water on his face, and just sat down on the floor and rewound the whole conversation in his mind. Had he done the right thing just now? Said the right thing?
When he felt calmer, he returned to the hospital room that had been home for the past couple of days, only to find Raven and Murphy in there now instead of Dr. Jackson. Raven was holding Avery, walking around the room with her, and Clarke had a tray of food on top of her lap.
"Oh, she got hungry, huh?" Bellamy said.
"Yes, she did," Clarke answered unabashedly. She shoveled a heaping spoonful of Jell-o into her mouth and moaned as though it were the best tasting thing ever.
"Bellamy . . ." Raven said, holding Avery up to her shoulder so she could gently pat her back. "I'm obsessed with her already. She's so cute."
"Yeah, she is," he agreed. She had blonde hair, like Clarke, and blue eyes, like Clarke. So that was good. Weren't most babies born with blue eyes, though? Hopefully hers would stay blue. He liked the thought of her being a mini-version of her mother.
"Murphy, this is our goddaughter," Raven said. "You wanna hold her?"
Murphy seemed nervous when he responded, "I'm not really good with babies." But Raven completely ignored him and handed Avery over anyway. "Oh, there we go," he said. After a few unsure seconds, he smiled and said, "Hey, this isn't so bad."
Raven whipped out her phone, then, and started recording.
"No, what're you doin'?" Murphy grumbled. "I'm behind the camera, not in front of it."
"I think it's time you get a taste of your own medicine," she said.
Murphy rolled his eyes and reluctantly played along. "Hi, I'm Murphy," he said. "This is Avery."
"Avery Octavia Blake," Clarke piped up in between bites of food.
"Blake." Murphy shot Bellamy a pointed look. "Nice."
Very nice, he thought. Avery's last name was . . . a relief, quite honestly.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now," Murphy said, looking awkwardly at the camera.
"Here, switch." Raven swapped her phone with the baby and said, "Film me with my adorable niece."
Bellamy went over to Clarke's bed and sat down on the side of it, helping himself to a few of her French fires, because he was starving, too. "I have a feeling this is how it's gonna be from now on," he said. "We show up somewhere, and no one's really that excited to see us. They just wanna see the baby."
"Yeah. That's okay, though," she said. She finished off her Jell-o, set that bowl aside, then asked him, "Where were you?"
Instead of answering right away, he stalled by acting confused. "What do you mean?"
"You said you went to get Raven and Murphy," she reminded him, "but then they came back here without you."
Because I was dealing with Finn, he thought, but instead, he just said, "Oh." He thought about telling her the truth, but he didn't want to upset her. So he told a variation of it instead. "Bathroom."
She nodded, seeming to have no problem accepting that, and returned to her meal. But suddenly, he didn't feel so hungry anymore. In fact, his stomach sort of . . . clenched. Because he felt like he should have told her Finn had been there. Now maybe it was too late.
...
It'd been a day full of visitors, that was for sure. After Murphy and Raven came Harper and Monty. Harper claimed Avery was going to be a dancer, because she had lively feet. Whatever the hell that meant. And Monty brought her a stuffed animal from the gift shop. Her first present, and just one more toy to add to the already massive collection that awaited her back home.
Miller and Jasper showed up next, followed shortly by Lexa. The boys left when it was time for a feeding, but Lexa was less freaked out by it, so she stayed. After that, Aurora and Octavia returned with Lincoln, who looked like the biggest teddy bear in the world holding such a little baby. They left when Avery went to sleep, but there was no time for Clarke to sleep, because her parents and Kane and Alyssa came and visited for a while.
Eventually, it was only her mom who remained. Bellamy finally fell asleep on the couch, his back towards them, and Clarke made sure to hold Avery, just so that she wouldn't start crying, so that if she needed to be fed, she could get on that quickly without her making any noise. Bellamy needed to rest. She, on the other hand, felt more rested than she had in days, and less sore, too, so she walked around the room with her daughter, just proud to carry her.
"Clarke, honey, why don't you just lie down?" her mom suggested.
"No, I need to get up and move around," she said. That hospital bed was no substitute for her bed at home, and she didn't like feeling confined to it. Casting a glance at poor Bellamy, she wondered how sore he was going to be when he woke up tomorrow after sleeping on a couch that wasn't big enough for him. "He's so tired," she said.
"That's a long time to go without any sleep," her mom said.
"Yeah, I think he was starting to get delirious. He was asking me about the cat." She made a face. "We don't own a cat."
Her mom smiled and laughed a bit. There were bags under her eyes, too, a sure sign of her own exhaustion. "How are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm good," Clarke answered. "Now that I got some rest, I feel like I can't sleep."
"Adrenaline rush."
"Yeah." Maybe that was it. "I kinda feel like I could . . . take on the whole world. Is that weird?"
"No, not at all," her mom said. "You had a baby. You just proved to yourself that you can do anything."
"Well, maybe not anything," she acknowledged. "But I'd do anything for her." She'd read about this, how some women felt like superwoman after delivery. It was a nice feeling, even if it wouldn't last forever. She wondered if her mom had felt that way after giving birth to her, or if Aurora had felt that way after giving birth to Bellamy. Maybe not, because she'd been so young at the time. Young like Clarke had been back when she'd gotten pregnant for the first time.
"Mom?" she said quietly. "Is this okay?"
Her mom looked at her curiously. "What do you mean?"
Clarke wasn't exactly sure what she meant, but she still felt the need to hear that this was all okay. "Well, I know you wanted me to be a doctor and follow in your footsteps, but . . . here I am," she said. "Not that I need your approval or anything. It'd just be nice to know you're not disappointed."
"Oh, Clarke . . ." Her mom took on an unusually soft tone when she said, "I love my job. But being your mother is the most important, worthwhile job I'll ever have. You know what I mean, don't you?"
Clarke looked down at the baby girl in her arms and said, "Yeah. I do now." The future didn't seem so uncertain anymore, because her daughter was her future. Everything would be for her. "I think things between us—you know, all of us—can be better now," she said. "No more secrets, no more tension. Bellamy's giving our family a second chance, and . . . well, you see how much he loves Avery."
Her mother nodded and said, "He'll be a good father."
"Yeah." The best, she thought. Bellamy was made for this. "I think she recognizes his voice already," she said. "Whenever he talks to her, she just looks right up at him. And she tries to grab his finger a lot. It's like . . ." She smiled, feeling an overwhelming sense of happiness that may or may not have been a side effect of her adrenaline rush. And it felt damn good. "She knows he's her dad," she finished up, glad that Avery could recognize love even in her earliest stage of life. Love was what was going to determine her family, not biology.
...
One coo from Avery had been enough to wake Bellamy up. And now as he lay there, listening to Clarke and her mom talk about him, he couldn't get back to sleep. They were saying good things, but he couldn't help but feel uneasy about them. Because what if they weren't true? What if Avery knew or just sensed something more about him, that he she wasn't half of him? Maybe it was too soon for that right now, but someday down the line . . . how were they going to tell her about Finn? What would she think of it?
He waited until her mom had left to turn over onto his back and sit up.
"Hey, you can keep sleeping if you want," Clarke said as she sat back down on her bed, Avery still in her arms. "She's good right now."
"It's alright," he said, getting to his feet. "I'm used to only sleeping for a few hours at a time."
"Why?" she said. "Because of my bladder?"
"Yep." He sat down on the bed, reaching out to touch Avery's head. She had these little wispy hairs, and she was so soft.
"It's gonna get better," Clarke promised. "At some point, I'll stop peeing so much."
He smiled a bit, but it didn't last long. There had been too much on his mind all day, and he couldn't prolong talking about it any longer. Keeping something from her, something important, was wearing on him. He couldn't do it anymore. "I need to tell you something," he said, ashamed that he'd kept it a secret all day. He shouldn't have. "Finn was here earlier," he revealed to her. "When Raven and Murphy were in here with you, I was out in the parking lot with him."
Clarke tensed, but she didn't say anything.
He cast a quick glance at Avery, whose eyes were shut. She hadn't reacted at all to Finn's name, which was oddly, if irrationally, comforting. "He wanted to come see her," he said, "but I told him to go away." Whether that had been the right response or not, he still didn't know, but he really hoped they wouldn't have to deal with him tomorrow. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," he apologized. "I just . . . I was worried."
"Why?" Clarke asked.
"Because . . ." It was hard to explain to anyone who wasn't him, but he was willing to try. "What if she takes one look at him and knows him? Or loves him? More than she loves me."
"Bellamy . . ." Clarke reached out to touch his arm. "That's not gonna happen."
"Yeah, I know," he said. "It's stupid."
"No, it's not . . . it's not stupid." She sat up a bit straighter, moving closer to him. "But you can talk to me about this stuff," she said. "Trust me, keeping it inside . . . it'll just eat away at you."
There was definitely a segue there, one he could have taken, especially since they hadn't talked about her previous pregnancy since he'd first shown up at the hospital. But those conversations would come later. This wasn't the time or place for them. "I should've told you he was here," he said. "I should've let you make the decision."
"No," she said. "I trust you. You're her father. You can make decisions for her, too."
He let out a shaky sigh, still not sure if he'd made the right one. It felt right, but what if it was wrong? Was this the kind of thing parents felt on a daily basis? Did they question everything? Or was it different for him because he wasn't a biological parent? Was he gonna have to question things more than a regular dad would have?
Coalescing his many questions all into one, he asked her, "Did I do the right thing?" and hoped for an honest response.
"Yes," she said without even hesitating. "He's not part of this. He chose not to be part of it. He shouldn't just get to show up and act like this is some huge deal in his life when we all know it's not. Even if you'd asked me about it, I would've told you to make him leave."
He nodded slowly, finding comfort in her reassurance. But there was something else that would comfort him, too, someone else. "Can I hold her?" he asked.
"Yeah." Clarke handed Avery over, and just feeling her in his hands . . . so little and innocent and in need of protecting . . . it made him feel like he had a purpose in life. A clearer, more important purpose than he'd ever had before.
"I wanna be her hero, Clarke," he blurted. And he meant that. No matter what it entailed or required of him, he wanted to be that person to her.
"I'm sure you will be," she said softly, and that was reassuring, too.
